Body, Mind and Spirit
by lovesrainscent
Summary: Shortly after becoming Hokage, Tsunade reviews some old personnel files and relives some old memories involving the original Ino-Shika-Cho team. Dark.
1. Body

**Title: ** Body, Mind and Spirit

**Author:** Lovesrainscent

**Rating:** T

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Naruto or these characters and stand to make no profit from posting this story.

**Summary:** Shortly after becoming Hokage, Tsunade reviews some old personnel files and relives some old memories. Dark. References to child abuse. A chapter for each of the original Ino-Shika-Cho trio.

**Body, Mind and Spirit**

The scrolls lay untouched on her desk. She had put off opening them as long as possible. All other tasks completed Tsunade realized she no longer had any excuse for not reviewing these documents she'd ordered some assistant to fetch her from the personnel section.

Shikamaru Nara. That was the kid's name. Her first chuunin. The first one she had had the honor and the privilege and the _duty_ to promote since becoming Hokage.

Scrawny little runt.

And seeing him had taken her breath away. He looked so much like his father had when he was his own scrawny little twelve year old self.

God, how much time had gone by?

She tipped the ochoko of sake back, letting the warmth of it fill her mouth and throat as she swallowed it down.

Undoing the ribbon of the first scroll she unfurled it over the desk in front of her…

_Akamichi._

A long time, a very, very long time indeed had gone by. What had it been, thirty-five, thirty-six years since she'd first encountered a member of the original Ino-Shika-Cho team?

She had been a wide-eyed twelve year old medical apprentice. Making her rounds with Koharu-shishou one day they had examined a plump little red-headed toddler spiking a fever. During the examination, Tsunade had come upon several troubling items, notably more than a few instances of fractures that had healed.

To a certain extent injuries in the extremities of children were to be expected. Skinned knees, twisted ankles, a forearm broken where a clumsy child has tried to break a fall, those could be understood _occasionally_ as part of growing up. But these were numerous and some of them were unusual - compression fractures of the ribs indicating too much pressure, both clavicles mended.

And when she had started to question it, Koharu-shishou had instantly stepped in, cutting her off and addressing the concerned mother with reassurances and a supply of an anti-inflammatory for the fever.

Stunned, Tsunade had finished her rounds with Koharu in almost total silence, mumbling her answers and simply nodding when she thought she could get away with it.

This went against everything she had been taught about reporting suspected abuse. When the shift was over and they were back in Koharu's office, young Tsunade couldn't stand it anymore.

"Why?" she blurted out.

"Why, what?" Tsunade-chan, Koharu had responded with her own question.

"Why did you just let that woman go? Why didn't you find out more about that child's injuries, I know you detected them the same as I did! Why didn't you say anything? Why didn't you let _me_ say anything?" The words that she'd been holding back all day came spilling out in a jumble.

"Didn't you catch the name on the chart, Tsunade-chan? They were Akamichi."

And that had been the end of the topic as far as Koharu was concerned. Tsunade could tell by the finality and simplicity of the answer that she wasn't going to get anymore out of her teacher. Without saying another word, Tsunade knew that Koharu had effectively assigned her to the library to figure it out for herself.

Tsunade had holed up in the medical records section for the entire weekend, studying everything she could find about the clan and Koharu's seeming indifference to the plight of that little toddler boy. What she had learned had only left her with more questions.

Trembling with rage she confronted Koharu with the most important one at work Monday morning. "What kind of a mother breaks her own child's bones as part of his _training_?"

Koharu answered calmly. "How could she not? If she delays it will only make his training more difficult, more painful for him. If the process of breaking and re-knitting the bones begins earlier, osteogenesis is encouraged. It will be easier for him to learn and practice the expansion jutsus of his clan when he is older. She is in fact, helping him."

"But it's _wrong!_"

"But they are _shinobi_."

And that had been her first interaction with the Akamichi clan.

Fingers tracing, toying delicately with the ribbon of the second scroll she finally forced herself to open it and reveal the face that had been in her office for his promotion not fifteen minutes ago. Shikaku Nara.

Correction.

Shika_maru_ Nara had been in her office for his promotion. Shikaku Nara had been the scarred man standing behind him.

But he had been a kid once, long ago, too, hadn't he?


	2. Mind

She'd first met him as a runner delivering supplies from Nara clan researchers to the medical center. She'd seen him around the village, and knew that he'd become friends with Chouza Akamichi whose progress she had kept an eye on over the years. Along with a third boy the crew seemed fairly happy, amiable budding young ninja.

Even if he was supremely lazy and unmotivated, Shikaku was a helpful guy to have around the medical center once you got him going. He was very knowledge of all his clan's compounds, could file and classify efficiently and besides he had a sharp wit and a dry sense of humor that could always make her laugh.

All that changed shortly after he had graduated the academy and been made a genin. Certainly with his new rank she expected to see less of him on the delivery runs, but his very demeanor changed as well. He became sullen and withdrawn. Dan had teased her that that description could be applied to most teenage males in the village, shinobi or not.

But the suddenness of the change, the sheer abruptness of it gnawed at Tsuande

She'd run into him by accident one day in the village shops when he was out buying candy from a newsstand. Seeing that his teammates weren't around she sidled up to him and rather than her customary "Hey, Shikaku, how are you?" she asked him point blank,

"Is something wrong?"

For an instant the startled look on his face reminded her that his name, shika, did mean deer. He looked ready to flee. But it only lasted a moment as he finished his purchase and shoved his hands in his pockets and turned calling to her over his shoulder. "Nah, I'm fine. I'll see you around."

She'd pestered Dan about the psychology of teenage boys but he seemed to think it was all just part of growing up. Her old teammate Jiraiya had been back in town so she decided that if anyone knew anything about boys and raging hormones it would be _him._

_"C'mon Tsunade, he's probably just crushing on you and embarrassed to be around you now."_

_"Jiraiya! If you knew this kid like I did you wouldn't say that. Something's changed…"_

_"Something's bound to change, Tsunade, kids grow up. And for guys sometimes those changes are startling and downright embarrassing at the most inopportune times. Now girls growing up however…that's just…marvelous, miraculous."_

_"Shut up you old pervert!" _

_"Okay, okay, don't hit me. What did you say the kid's name was again?"_

_"Nara. Shikaku Nara."_

_"Nara, hmmmm…is he a chuunin yet?"_

_"Not yet but I think his team will go up at the exams next time, why?"_

_"Well, there's a lot of ways to grow up…"_

And with much wheedling and cajoling and sake he had proceeded to tell her what he knew about training in the Nara secret clan techniques.

Strangulation was a broad term, encompassing a variety of ways to kill by interfering with oxygen supply to a victim's brain.

One could apply pressure to the carotid arteries or jugular veins thus impeding the blood flow to the brain.

Tsunade knew from forensic literature that death by compression of the blood vessels only required about 3.4N per square centimeter. But it took time, a long time, upwards of two minutes to cause death that way. Useful information in legal proceedings if you want to establish intent because you sure as hell had to _intend_ to kill someone if you were going to strangle them for a solid two minutes and watch them die in the process.

Or one could apply the pressure to the airways directly, crushing the trachea and larynx. This required greater force, upwards of 22N per square centimeter. Victims in these cases experienced "air hunger" an anguished thrashing about as they struggled to breathe. Quicker but requiring more force to apply the pressure as well as to hold on to a victim that's thrashing about for their very life.

The third way was the quickest but required the greatest dexterity, carotid sinus stimulation causing death by brachycardia. If the killer applies pressure at just the right spot, high on the neck about an inch lower than the jawbone he can put his thumb on the sensor located in the wall of the carotid artery. The sensor there tells the heart to slow down if the blood pressure going into the brain is too high. Push hard enough on the vessel and up the pressure in it, the sensor tells the heart to back off. And the heart obediently slows down to nothing, at which point it can start to fibrillate and death occurs.

In order to even stand for the chuunin exam, Nara genin had to demonstrate mastery of all three techniques.

The deer were handy practice targets.

The nature of this was kept from Nara children however. They raised the deer, cared for the deer, nursed them if they were ill.

And as a rite of passage upon graduation from the Academy they were required to make three kills demonstrating not only a mastery of each technique but also their ability to follow orders unquestioningly.

Tsunade had walked home alone that night, wondering... what went through a kid's mind during that two minutes?


	3. Spirit

What went through a kid's mind? Hell, what went through any of their minds at times like that?

Setting the Nara and Akamichi documents aside, her fingers hesitated over the remaining scrolls. There were two.

Both for Yamanaka.

She opened Inoichi's first. The dossier was current, listing his most recent missions and commendations. Personal and family information was toward the end and Tsunade hurriedly flipped there.

A daughter.

Inoichi had a daughter.

Of course she'd known that already, having caught a glimpse of the girl in the village and thinking that she'd seen a ghost.

If Shikamaru Nara was the spitting image of his father then Ino Yamanaka bore an eerie resemblance to Inoichi's sister.

Aya Yamanaka had been the most breathtakingly beautiful girl Tsunade could remember. She was a few years older than Inoichi, perhaps four years older than he. She had been an intelligence agent, specializing in espionage using Shintenshin no Justu.

She was particularly adept at using the jutsu to control animals, notably birds in her surveillance efforts.

Aya was indispensable to her companions in intelligence. And to her brother as well since their parents had both died when they were younger. Tsunade, having raised Nawaki, had felt a certain kinship with the girl as she brought up her own younger brother. The two of them were a striking pair around Konoha, both tall and blond with those piercing blue Yamanaka eyes.

When Aya had been about twenty, Inoichi sixteen, tensions between Konoha and Kumogakure were heating up. Aya was pressed into service more and more. All shinobi in the village of course were called on for more missions than usual, but the strain on Aya was intense. Knowledge of enemy movements were paramount and aerial surveillance was best for keeping them informed.

Aya spent hours at Intelligence headquarters. Long nights stretched into early mornings and when Tsunade would occasionally catch sight of her coming or going out of the building she looked more and more haggard. Tsunade wasn't the only one worried about her, Inoichi finally had to drag his sister in to the medical center out of his concern for her.

The younger woman had seemed more than just exhausted, she was distracted, hardly aware of her surroundings at the time and frequently losing track of the conversation. Inoichi had had to keep calling her name, catching her attention again in order to get her to answer Tsunade's questions during the exam.

Tsunade had wanted to admit her for a day or two but Aya had managed to wave it off, merely asking for a supply of soldier pills and assuring Tsunade and Inoichi she would rest.

The strangeness of her behavior troubled the golden-haired sannin so once again she had resorted to the medical library. She'd read up on all she could about documented dangers of shintenshin no jutsu. The slowness of the jutsu was one well known problem, it could take a long time for a user's spirit to affect the target or conversely to return to their own body.

Less prevalent but still a danger however was something known as fractionation of consciousness. The wielder's conscious mind could be split into smaller and smaller fragments as they cycled through more and more targets, not only taking longer to return each time but also returning as less and less of their own _self._

Finally, one day Aya simply did not come back.

She'd received an urgent request to report to the intelligence center and had been led through hushed hallways to the room that Aya had been working from. The girl's body was lying on a cot. Her heart and pulse were near normal she just wasn't conscious. Attempts to rouse her failed and Tsunade had her transferred to the medical center.

There had been a heated battle between the medical center and the intelligence officers getting her access to Aya's mission logs. Finally she was given grudging access to a heavily redacted version. Tsunade didn't give a whit about what the girl had seen, she wanted to know how often and how far and how long she'd been out.

The results were astonishing. Apparently Aya had perfected her technique to the point where she didn't need just line of sight to a target herself. From one direct target she could use_ its_ line of sight to acquire the next one and so on and so on. She had managed to work her way into an unprecedented level deep into Kumo territory. The danger to her being that 'she' was spread thinner and thinner each hop and the further afield she went, the greater number of steps she'd have to retrace to find her way back.

She wasn't dead. She was just...lost...fractionated. Call it what you would, the girl was gone and she wasn't coming back.

Her condition caused an appalling medical dilemma though that soon turned into its own horror. Since her consciousness wasn't transferred into one single target's body she wasn't in any immediate danger of dying if that host's body were to die as can be the case when shintenshin is used normally. But she wasn't really _there_, there was no _person_ called Aya occupying the shell of her own body anymore.

Her case become somewhat of a cause celebre among factions of Yamanka clan members as well as within the broader community of Konoha itself. People became highly polarized over whether she was "alive" in any meaningful sense of the word or should be allowed to "finish" dying with "dignity". It was further complicated by the fact that when she'd first been admitted and the true extent of the damage was unknown, a feeding tube had been inserted. Now there were those who argued that removing it was tantamount to murder.

Tsunade noticed that the most shrill voices belonged to those who could protest when it was convenient and then go home to their own families at night. They didn't see the haggard visage of young Inoichi who spent every waking minute that he wasn't on an assignment by his sister's bedside. He himself was now as pale and exhausted and distracted as Aya had been when he'd brought her to the medical center that time. He haunted the hallways of the center like a ghost - slipping in every free minute that he had and obediently and quietly slipping out when it was time for his next mission.

And the real kicker to all of this, the thing that stuck in Tsunade's craw the most and pissed her off immeasurably was that he had no say in the matter. Since he was sixteen and not yet the age of majority by Konoha's laws, he was not allowed to decide what was best for his own sister.

He was old enough to be assigned to kill in the name of Konoha, to be asked to give up his own life in service to the village but they didn't even have the decency to let him be the one to decide what should happen to his only remaining family member.

Tsunade poured another saucer of sake and downed it quickly, feeling the heat spread from her throat to the rest of her body. She opened up the last scroll catching the pictures as they fluttered out. She spread them out on the desk. Such a beautiful girl...

The memories of it still made her shudder.

Things had all come to a head one evening when Inoichi had visited his sister. Slipping quietly down the hall he had come upon an orderly abusing..._molesting._..her body. Tsunade had been working late herself and had heard the shouts. She and several other staff had dashed down the hall and into the room pulling Inoichi away from the man he was beating to a bloody pulp.

She'd summoned the Uchiha police herself to have the...vermin...removed from her hospital then spent the next hour trying to calm Inoichi down, trying to convince him to at least come home and stay with her. The best she could do was agree to allow a cot in the room so that he could stay with Aya. Bringing him a tray of dinner she'd slipped a powerful tranquilizer into his food and stayed as he ate then finally drifted off to sleep.

Inoichi had a mission the next morning but he had made Tsunade swear she'd keep a Uchiha stationed by Aya's room all day until he got back that night. When he did return she was surprised to see both his teammates with him. Certainly she'd seen Nara or Akamichi with him off and on throughout his ordeal but rarely had the three of them been in the hospital together. Tonight the three were walking along, heads down, talking to each other in hushed tones. She greeted them but barely got an acknowledgment in reply.

Passing down the hallway to retrieve some medical files for another patient later that evening she saw Chouza standing in front of Aya's room door almost as if he were on guard duty himself. She thought it odd at first but since the Uchiha had gone off duty when Inoichi returned she just assumed the blond had asked his friend to stay in the guard's place. She had wondered where Shikaku was, though.

A short while later an alarm was going off and a nurse was frantically paging her, Aya was flatlining.

As she dashed into the room, she saw Inoichi's tear-streaked face with his two friends standing stoically beside him. Flicking off the incessant noise of the monitor she performed a quick exam of the girl. It was possible with CPR they might get the heart started again but...

She glanced up at Inoichi who was shaking his head 'no'.

"Inoichi, I'm sorry but.."

"I know," he had whispered back to her.

"Do you want us to..."

Biting his lip he shook his head more fervently 'no' and Tsunade nodded. "Okay, I'm calling it then." She looked up at the clock on the wall. "Time of death 12:01a.m."

She looked at him again, standing there between his two friends. Even though he was the tallest of the three he seemed very small and young now in her eyes. "You can stay here as long as you want you know," she had told him softly.

"No. No. I think I've been here long enough. I think...I'll go home with Shikaku tonight."

Tsunade nodded. "And you Chouza?"

"He can crash at my house tonight, too, Tsunade," Shikaku had answered. "My mom won't mind she's used to it."

"Okay, well, if you need anything, Inoichi, anything at all you let me know, okay?"

He had nodded, this time affirmatively then turned with his friends to leave. Tsunade watched the three boys walk down the hall together. The nurse beside her politely asked if she should prepare the body for an autopsy.

"No, that won't be necessary." Besides, Tsunade had thought to herself, she already knew damned good and well what she would find if she were to do an autopsy. Back in her office she filled out the paperwork with cause of death listed as _due to natural causes_ without even a second thought.

She finished the last of her sake then surveyed the scrolls in front of her one last time before resealing them.

Ino-Shika-Cho. Well, if they could give themselves body, mind and spirit to this damn village could she do any less?


End file.
